Arkansas' double midweek a mixture of geography restrictions, philosophy

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In a perfect world, coach Dave Van Horn might not be playing Wednesday's game against Arkansas-Little Rock. Although nowhere as grueling as a 162-game MLB season, the Razorbacks are 42 games into a 56-game slate that would put wear and tear even amongst the most seasoned players.

Van Horn was grateful for the three full days of rest after losing two out of three to Texas A&M over the weekend before having to take the field again in Arkansas' 10-0 win over the Trojans in seven innings Tuesday.

"The human body [and] the human mind can only take so much," Van Horn said. "When we had that little rain delay [against Texas A&M], it was hard to get it going again a little bit, as tired as they were. I know how tired I was, I know how tired other coaches were, so I know the players were more tired than that. They play and run and hit and do all the other stuff."

To compound the exhaustion, Arkansas will be the only SEC team in action Wednesday as the Hogs finish the third and final double midweek on the schedule this year against the Trojans. Other SEC schools and major programs either opt to play its double midweeks earlier in the year or schedule under the maximum number of games allowed by the NCAA.

Teams are allowed to schedule a maximum of 56 games, something that Van Horn decided to do for the 2025 schedule. In 2024, Van Horn scheduled 55 regular season games. Prominent baseball programs like UCLA and Virginia both only have 54.

Making things more complicated, Arkansas only has four D1 schools in the state, far fewer than many other schools in the SEC. The closest, Central Arkansas, is roughly two and a half hours away from campus.

"Fayetteville is not easy to get to," Van Horn said. "It’s not like you can run down the highway and go play all these schools. When you’re at some of the schools in our league, you can run down the road 20 minutes, 15 minutes and play some Division 1 schools all around town. Can’t do that here."

The unpredictable weather at the beginning of the year doesn't help either. Fans at Baum-Walker will be familiar with the often cold conditions that sweep across the area. Fayetteville doesn't have the luxury of being "70 and sunny like in San Diego," according to Van Horn.

Given the importance of what lies ahead for Arkansas in the final four weeks of SEC play, getting a clean and crisp run-rule victory like the Hogs did on Tuesday that lasted just a minute over 2 hours could pay dividends leading into the weekend series against Florida.

Florida run-ruled Georgia Southern 12-1 Tuesday and now will get an extra day off before welcoming the Razorbacks to town.

"I’d rather not play two at this time of year," Van Horn said. "If we do play two, it’s nice when you can play seven innings and only use three pitchers."

Colin Fisher will get the start on the mound for Arkansas.

"You can tell how I feel about all this," Van Horn said, "It’s just what you do because that’s what the schedule tells you to do. It’s baseball. It’s the up and downs of the game, you win and lose, you can call it a skid, you can call it whatever you want. I call it baseball."

Arkansas concludes its two game set against Little Rock 5 p.m. Wednesday on national television. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.

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